Session 150 on Saturday, January 7, 2017

I continue to refine the indoor studio setup–I managed to fix the lighting problem, and now you can see me as well as the monitor. I did this (as I mentioned in the previous post) by going to 100-watt light bulbs in the lamps in here, as well as using a 35%-transparent black mask over the slide in Powerpoint. Even at that level, there’s plenty of light coming from the monitor to see what’s on it.

Tonight I used the metronome instead of the drum track–no reason, just for variation.

Segment A: I see that the best way to do rolls practice over chords is to set the metronome or whatever at a particular speed, then do whatever rolls and chords I’m going to do before changing speed. If I do three speeds, and that seems natural with a 15-minute segment, then the five minutes at each one is plenty of time to vary the roll pattern and the chords on top of it. It’s not the most interesting thing in the world to listen do, but I don’t really care, as long as I feel like I’m getting benefit from it (and I do).

Segment B: Tonight I spent a lot of time on ‘Devil’s Dream,’ which is overdue for VE, and then I worked a little on the three tunes from Murphy.

Segment C: I spent the whole time tonight on ‘Sailor’s Hornpipe,’ which I’m doing for TTSB’s* 30-Day Challenge. I really should make that a separate thing, though–maybe a Segment D that can be split away from the rest and collected separately. Hmm….

Overall, a good session, even if it was inside, which I don’t much like because I feel like if I’m inside, I have to use the muted banjo, and it doesn’t sound very good.